New fence goes up at Y-12 plant

It was April Fools’ Day, but there was no fooling around Monday at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.

The Associated Press

It was April Fools’ Day, but there was no fooling around Monday at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.

Workers carried out a government order to install a new fence near the plant’s entrance, and by early afternoon the job was completed, blocking access to the grassy acreage that’s been used by demonstrators for decades.

It’s the latest in a series of measures taken in the wake of last year’s break-in by three Plowshares protesters, who embarrassed Y-12’s vaunted security team by cutting through fences and ultimately reaching the plant’s inner core where bomb-grade uranium is stored and weapons work is carried out.

According to federal spokesman Steven Wyatt, the new fence is intended to deter trespassing at the site, known officially as the Y-12 National Security Complex. A temporary fence, consisting of a series of barricades placed together along Scarboro Road, cost about $95,000, Wyatt said. A permanent fence, costing about $150,000, will be constructed later.

A protest sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance is scheduled for Saturday and it’s not yet clear what impact the new fencing will have on that event. At similar events in the past, peace activists have carried out acts of “civil disobedience” and been arrested for trespassing or blocking the entrance into the weapons facility.

OREPA coordinator Ralph Hutchison said the group intends to seek a federal injunction to regain use of the site near Y-12’s entrance.

Saturday’s event is scheduled to protest the planned construction of a new multibillion-dollar production facility at the Oak Ridge plant. The Uranium Processing Facility is estimated to cost up to $6.5 billion, and critics have called the facility unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer money during tough economic times.